Shedding Doctrine

Bogus Beliefs

Part of the advertising copy for a book supposedly making Christianity relevant again:

OPEN CHRISTIANITY

Home by Another Road

by Jim Burklo

* Is Christianity the only true path to God?

* Was Jesus uniquely divine?

* The "hard questions" of theology: death, sin, good and evil, resurrection, creation

"If you are not a Christian," [the author] says, "this book invites you to explore the teachings of Jesus without requiring you to accept the Bible as literally true, or to follow an extreme, inflexible, or nonsensical theology. If Christianity is your heritage, this book invites you to love God and neighbor as Jesus did; to abandon or reinterpret any dogma that gets in love's way; and if you have left that heritage, to come back to it with joy. . . . Burklo takes the Bible seriously because he doesn't take it literally. He offers an effective guide to replacing doctrines and practices that no longer speak for the soul. His discussion of topics such as ‘a theology of enough,’ ‘soulful sexuality’ and ‘the gospel truth’ will be controversial but enlightening. Stories of Burklo's real-world pastoral experiences, including frank discussion of his mistakes and failures, lend ‘been there’ credibility to his proposals.

“The book ends with his ‘Credo for Christians:’ a fresh formulation of Christianity for our time. The door into the Christian church just opened wider. Poetic and prophetic for all people determined to find their spiritual path, Open Christianity charts a new road to the heart of Christian faith.”

[TBC: The apostle Paul wrote movingly of knowing “the power of His resurrection . . . “ (Philippians:3:10That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
See All...). As a man whose life had been changed, Paul took seriously the claims of Christ and the Scriptures. His epistles also demonstrate that he also took the promises of Scripture literally. To replace the “doctrines and practices” of the Bible is to have nothing with which to replace them.]